C. René Padilla and the Origins ofIntegral Mission in Post-War Latin

America

by DAVID C. KIRKPATRICKUniversity of Edinburgh

E-mail: d.c.kirkpatrick@sms.ed.ac.uk

This article discusses the origins of ‘misión integral’ or integral mission, a term coined by theEcuadorian theologian C. René Padilla (b. ). As the first critical study of Padilla, itargues that the origins of ‘misión integral’ are to be found within a cluster of political andsocial forces that were reshaping post-war Latin America: rural-urban migration, the resultingcomplications of urbanisation and the rapid expansion of the universities, where Marxistideas of revolutionary change were of growing appeal to students. This article relies on inter-views with many of the leading personalities involved, together with personal papers, archivalresearch and Latin American census data.

In June René Padilla, John Stott, Orlando Costas and José MíguezBonino descended a winding road tucked into the side of Irazú, anactive volcano in Cordillera Central, Costa Rica, just outside the city

of Cartago. One topic dominated their conversation: the efficacy ofMarxism versus capitalism, and the compatibility of each withChristianity. As they navigated the narrow road, the four theologiansstopped to watch ‘two teams of peasants ploughing a hillside field, andsowing it with potatoes’. John Stott recorded in his travel diary soon after

All interviews cited in this article were conducted in the language of the participantsand translated by the author.

BGCA = Billy Graham Center Archives; BGEA = Billy Graham Evangelistic Association;CLADE = Congreso Latinoamericano de Evangelización; FTL = FraternidadTeológica Latinoamericana; IFES = International Fellowship of Evangelical Students;IVCF = InterVarsity Christian Fellowship; IVF = Inter-Varsity Fellowship; SCM =Student Christian Movement; UCCF = Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship;UNAM = Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; WCC = World Council ofChurches; WCSF = World Christian Student Federation

Jnl of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. , No. , April . © Cambridge University Press doi:./S

that ‘Two oxen were yoked to a simple wooden plough, while barefoot menwalked up the furrows rhythmically scattering fertiliser and potatoes.’ Thisliving parable offered a vivid backdrop to discussions of the relationshipbetween Christianity and politics, theology and economics, along withpower, corruption and the future of Latin America. The conversationalso provides a window into the new religious landscape of the post-warperiod – an increasingly diverse and increasingly global Evangelicalism,represented by a Latin American Methodist liberation theologian inMíguez Bonino, an ecumenical Evangelical in Costas, a BritishEvangelical Anglican clergyman in Stott, and a progressive Evangelical inPadilla.Three years earlier , Protestant Evangelical leaders from over

countries and denominations had gathered in Lausanne under theleadership of the North American Southern Baptist Billy Graham(b. ) and the British Anglican John Stott (–) for theInternational Congress on World Evangelisation. The conference waslargely planned and funded by a Western leadership – particularly by theBilly Graham Evangelistic Association. As the conference unfolded,however, it became clear that Western-planned agenda for the entireworld were no longer tenable. Indeed, the most incisive contributions atLausanne came from leaders from the Global South, from men such asPadilla rather than Western Evangelical leaders such as Stott andGraham. Here Padilla decried the exportation of ‘American cultureChristianity’ and prepackaged theological methodologies exported fromthe west to the Majority World. The influence of René Padilla on theradical reshaping of global Evangelical Protestant mission remains anuntold story. From where, therefore, did Padilla’s prescient intellectualcontribution come? If his influence has been largely obscured, howmight uncovering the origins of his intellectual contribution shed lighton global shifts within the social and political activism of post-warProtestant Evangelicalism?

‘Stott // travel diaries, ’, John R.W. Stott papers, Lambeth PalaceLibrary, London.

While the Spanish ‘evangélico’ differs from the English ‘Evangelical,’ these theolo-gians identified themselves as both, so that the English termmay be used here. The bestdefinition of Protestant Evangelicalism remains David Bebbington’s quadrilateral:Evangelicalism in modern Britain: a history from the s to the s, London , –.The definitive scholarly biography of Stott is Alister Chapman, Godly ambition: JohnStott and the Evangelical movement, Oxford . For Míguez Bonino see Paul Davies,Faith seeking effectiveness: the missionary theology of José Míguez Bonino, Zoetermeer .

BGCA, Wheaton, Illinois, SC , box , folder . See Brian Stanley, ‘“Lausanne”: the challenge from the majority world to northern-hemisphere Evangelicalism’,this JOURNAL lxiv (), , and The global diffusion of Evangelicalism, Nottingham–Downers Grove, IL , and T. E. Yates, Christian mission in the twentieth century,Cambridge .

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Three possible conclusions may be suggested: that René Padilla played acentral role in the rise of both Majority World leadership and holisticthemes in World Christianity in the second half of the twentieth century;that in order to do justice to this reality, teachers of late modernChristianity should use the language of integral mission; and that integralmission arose from within the revolutionary Latin American university en-vironment. Thus, while Protestant Evangelical and liberation theologiansexchanged significant intellectual resources, the origins of integralmission are to be found within shared political and social stimuli, ratherthan in a wholesale borrowing from liberation theology.René Padilla became a travelling secretary with the International

Fellowship of Evangelical Students in the late s, a role that requiredconstant contact with universities throughout Latin America. During thistime he, along with other Latin American thinkers, began to developwhat would later be termed misión integral, or integral mission: Padilla isindeed widely considered to be its ‘father’. David Bebbington hasclearly demonstrated that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centur-ies Evangelical social action was largely justified theologically as theremoval of ‘obstacles to the progress of the gospel’ or as the eliminationof social sins that contravened divine commands. In terms of theologicalmethodology, this fitted squarely within what David Bosch called a ‘twomandate approach’, which predominated in Evangelical theological lan-guage prior to the s. This method divided Christian mission into aprimary, spiritual mandate and a subordinate (often muted) socialmandate. By contrast, integral mission is an understanding that positsthat social action and evangelism are both essential and indivisible compo-nents of Christian mission – indeed both are central aspects within theChristian Gospel (the Spanish integral is used to describe wholemealbread or wholeness).While the emerging historiography has begun to recognise Padilla’s con-

tribution in , Lausanne was not the first time that Padilla had clashedwith Western leadership, or even a Billy Graham-led conference. Fiveyears earlier Padilla had spoken out against the Evangelical barrier

This English translation has been adopted by René Padilla himself and so will beused in this article.

David Bebbington, ‘Evangelicals and reform: an analysis of social and political action’,Third Way (), –, and The nonconformist conscience: chapel and politics, –,London–Boston , –.

David J. Bosch, Transforming mission: paradigm shifts in theology of mission, Maryknoll,NY , .

See, for example, Stanley, ‘“Lausanne ””, and Global diffusion, and Chapman,Godly ambition.

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between social action and evangelism in the aftermath of the First LatinAmerican Congress for Evangelisation (Congreso Latinoamericano deEvangelización or CLADE I) of – November , which had beenplanned by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Targetting thismethodological barrier, Padilla remarked that ‘This would be equivalentto asking about the relative importance of the right wing and the leftwing of a plane.’ Padilla’s words, including his metaphor of the ‘twowings’, were repeated throughout the s and s, most clearly inthe documents (edited by Stott) of the International Consultation on theRelationship between Evangelism and Social Responsibility, held atGrand Rapids, Michigan, on – June . Stott has been widelycredited with Padilla’s phrase. Indeed, one eulogy stated that ‘[Stott] isfamous for saying that evangelism and social responsibility are like … twowings of a dove’.Six months prior to the Lausanne Congress, Stott and Padilla trav-

elled throughout Latin America, preaching and lecturing together underthe auspices of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.Their tour included a visit to ‘hardline communist’ political prisoners insouthern Chile, who had been ‘interrogated under torture’ by the militaryregime. It is not surprising that Samuel Escobar, plenary speaker andmember of the planning committee at Lausanne , credited Stottand Padilla’s friendship – a friendship that sprang out of the fertile LatinAmerican revolutionary context – for the inclusion of social elements inthe Lausanne Covenant. The global Evangelical student movement pro-vided avenues for intellectual exchange that crossed the wide boundariesof ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’, and ‘West’ versus ‘Majority World’. WhileStott’s influence has been widely noted, Padilla’s contribution has beenwidely overlooked.

CLADE, Acción en Cristo para un continente en crisis, San José, Costa Rica ;C. René Padilla, ‘CLADE III: un <<hito>> en la historia de la Iglesia’, in Discipulado ymisión: compromiso con el reino de Dios, Buenos Aires , . Personal correspondence,planning and general papers from CLADE I can be found in BGCA, collection .

C. Peter Wagner, Teología Latinoamericana: ¿Izquierdista o evangélica?, Miami . John R. W. Stott, Making Christ known: historic mission documents from the Lausanne

movement, –, Exeter , . Chris Wright is one of many who have used the phrase: The mission of God: unlocking

the Bible’s grand narrative, Downers Grove, IL , . Roy McCloughry, ‘John Stott, –’, Third Way (Sept. ),http://www.thirdwaymagazine.co.uk/editions/sept-/features/john-stott--

.aspx. Southern Chile, – Jan. , John Stott papers. David C. Kirkpatrick interview with Samuel Escobar, Valencia, Spain, Oct.

.

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The historiographical landscape

Historiography on late modern Christianity continues stubbornly to ignoredevelopments from the Global South – a surprising omission given that thevast majority of Christians today live in the Global South, and exert increas-ing influence on Western Christianity. Literature that has began to addressthis gap include David Stoll’s work Is Latin America turning Protestant?,which began the narrative in the s, defining integral mission with ref-erence to liberation theology. Other titles have followed suit. The mostrecent historiography on the influence of Latin American EvangelicalProtestants has been surprisingly silent on its origins. For example,Daniel Salinas, in his important Latin American Evangelical theology in thes, followed Stoll by excluding the s and s, instead focusingnarrowly on the s. On the other hand, in his Moral minority,David Swartz highlighted the influence of Escobar and Padilla on therise of progressive Evangelical politics in the United States. Similarly,helpful studies from Brian Stanley have contributed to a growing consensusregarding the importance of Evangelical Protestant voices from the GlobalSouth. These works contribute to understanding the eventual influenceof the ideas of Latin American Evangelical Protestants. Yet, in order tograsp and communicate trends that shaped late modern WorldChristianity, further study is needed. The origins of integral mission andthe importance of social location in the rise of Latin AmericanProtestant Evangelical social theology in the s and s has beenoverlooked or understated. By uncovering the origins and developmentof integral mission, this study will provide a missing historiographical link to

David Stoll, Is Latin America turning Protestant? The politics of Evangelical growth,Berkeley , –.

One recent title suggests that Evangelical Protestant social theology provided aperspective on preexistent liberation categories: Sharon E. Heaney, Contextual theologyfor Latin America: liberation themes in Evangelical perspective, Milton Keynes . Nonethe less it is a valuable attempt at a systematisation of Latin American ProtestantEvangelical theology.

Heaney, Contextual theology; Daniel Salinas, Latin American Evangelical theology in thes: the golden decade, Leiden–Boston .

Largely due to his methodology Salinas follows the recollection of the protago-nists: Latin American Evangelical theology, .

David R. Swartz, Moral minority: the Evangelical left in an age of conservatism,Philadelphia , .

Stanley, Global diffusion, and ‘“Lausanne ”’. The best historical survey of the origins of liberation theology remains Christian

Smith, The emergence of liberation theology: radical religion and social movement theory,Chicago . See also David Tombs, Latin American liberation theology, Leiden–Boston.

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intellectual ideas that reshaped the Protestant Evangelical world – inpolitics, mission and ecclesiology.

The rise of the Latin American university

Careful scrutiny of Latin American census data reveals two preliminary con-clusions regarding the vast post-war matriculation boom at Latin Americanuniversities. The first appears to be a stark, interwar increase in rural-urban migration. The second is a great surge in student enrolment withinthe universities themselves. According to the Mexican census,Mexico City, had nearly , inhabitants. By time of the next census,a decade later, the city’s population had grown to almost . million.Peru recorded similar urban growth during this period. The population ofLima stood at nearly ,, according to the November governmentcensus. Less than a decade later it had nearly doubled, with over ,inhabitants in . This trend continued: Lima’s population reachedover , in . These countries were by no means unique withinLatin America. Indeed, the political scientist George Blanksten wrote in that ‘There is no Latin American country in which there has been atrend away from urbanisation; everywhere the impressive fact has been themovement toward the city, the swelling of urban populations.’ The inter-war and post-war era in Latin America witnessed an explosion of urbanmigration, with a rise in economic ambitions as its corollary.These patterns converged in the Latin American university. For

example, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) hadin an enrolment of , students, which by had balloonedto nearly ,. By the student population in that year had sur-passed the aggregate for the whole of the s. Indeed, the totalnumber of graduates between and numbered only ,,while in the year alone, the university had over , students.Today UNAM has nearly , students, over , academic staffand an endowment of over . billion US dollars – a vast increase on its, students of nearly a century ago. Mexican universities certainly

M. Epstein (ed.), Statesman’s yearbook, , London , . Idem, Statesman’s yearbook, , London , . Idem, Statesman’s yearbook, , London , . Idem, Statesman’s yearbook, , . S. H. Steinberg (ed.), Statesman’s yearbook, , London , . Gabriel A. Coleman and James Smoot Almond, The politics of the developing areas,

Princeton, NJ , cited in Josué De Castro, Irving Louis Horowitz and John Gerassi(eds), Latin American radicalism: a documentary report on left and nationalist movements,London .

‘La UNAM en números’, Sept. , http://www.estadistica.unam.mx/numer-alia/.

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were not alone in witnessing this phenomenon – indeed it was universal inLatin America. The most prominent university in Peru, for example, theUniversidad de San Marcos, had , students in , nearly , by and , by .Burgeoning populations and expanding universities ultimately over-

whelmed the urban infrastructure. Certainly large-scale industrialisationfollowed upon widespread urbanisation. However, while countries suchas Colombia saw a level of industrial growth in the s similar to thatof Great Britain in the nineteenth century, growth tapered off after. Indeed, industrialisation and economic growth were unable tokeep pace with the demand for work. This story of rural-urban migration,the accompanying influx of university students, and declining economicopportunity set the stage for revolutionary action in cities around LatinAmerica.René Padilla observed this in the mid-s and wrote a series of articles

about it. In ‘La universidad: lo social, lo spiritual’ (‘The university: thesocial, the spiritual’) Padilla diagnosed a ‘social bottle neck’: an abundantdesire for upward mobility but a dearth of opportunity to achieve it.Padilla wrote that ‘The university has become the sore spot where the sick-ness of the whole organism is made evident.’ Enrolment at a universitywas far from a guarantee of socioeconomic improvement: according toPadilla, only about a quarter of those who enrolled eventually graduated,and those who did graduate faced meagre job prospects. Most LatinAmerican cities also lacked the structural framework to integrate soincreased a population. The rate of urbanisation was far higher than therate of industrialisation, in some cases as much as double the rate. Toput it another way, ‘The urban process raised levels of social aspiration

See C. René Padilla, ‘Student witness in Latin America today’, IFES Journal xix/(), .

M. Epstein (ed.), Statesman’s yearbook, , London , ; S. H. Steinberg(ed.), Statesman’s yearbook, , London , , .

David Bushnell, The making of modern Colombia: a nation in spite of itself, Berkeley, CA

, . Padilla, ‘Student witness’; ‘El testimonio cristiano en la universidad

Latinoamericana’, Pensamiento Cristiano xiv/ (), –; and ‘La universidad:lo social, lo spiritual’, Certeza viii/ (), –. The latter article can also befound in the C. René Padilla papers, Kairos Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina,uncatalogued.

Padilla, ‘La universidad’, . Ibid. Idem, ‘Student witness’, –. These figures appear to be inflated and are

difficult to verify. Irving Louis Horowitz, ‘The socioeconomic pivot’, in De Castro, Horowitz, and

Gerassi, Latin American radicalism, .

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without relieving economic pressures.’ This led to widespread disillusion,particularly among young people. The importance of political actionamong university students is better understood when seen in this light.According to Padilla

The student strikes (which at times lead to the closing of the university for weeksand even months) … are mere manifestations of the problems that afflict thewhole society … From this perspective it is possible to explain the importancethat politics is given among the students … the professional agitator seeks tochannel the bitterness of the oppressed into the narrow passages of a violentrevolution.

Latin American history demonstrates a long tradition of government toler-ation of student radicalism. But much had changed in the precedingdecade: the Cuban revolution, a rapid spread of repressive militaryregimes, and mass rural-urban migration. All these factors converged inthe Latin American university context. Social unrest in Latin Americamirrored broader global student uprisings, such as the Paris student riotsof , the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, the VietnamWar protests in-cluding the Kent State shooting of , events surrounding the CivilRights Movement in the United States, and widespread student protestsin Britain in and the years that followed. While protests ragedaround the world, those in Latin America were particularly violent andwidespread.In this environment, Latin American social theologies that challenged

the Western theological status quo were often viewed with suspicion andfear; trends in migration and urbanisation had set the stage for the riseof Protestantism, bringing new ideas and practices that challenged trad-itional Latin American religion.

Ibid. . Padilla, ‘La universidad’, ; ‘Student witness’, ; and ‘El testimonio cristiano’,

. Idem, ‘Student witness’, . See, for example, David Espinosa, ‘Student politics, national politics: Mexico’s na-

tional student union, –’, The Americas lxii/ (), –; cf. RistoLehtonen, Story of a storm: the ecumenical student movement in the turmoil of revolution, to , Grand Rapids , .

Tombs, Latin American liberation theology, . For more on global student protests see Lehtonen, Story of a storm, –. See also

E. R. Norman, Christianity and the world order, Oxford , . For more on the rise ofthird world theologies, and their impact on themissionary movement see Stanley,Globaldiffusion, .

Todd Hartch, The rebirth of Latin American Christianity, Oxford , .

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Migration and social theology: the Padilla family

René Padilla’s own family was part of the story of migration in Colombia inthe s. They moved to Colombia from Ecuador in when he wastwo-and-a-half years old, as his father Carlos sought a better market forhis tailoring business. The country was experiencing unprecedented eco-nomic growth, especially in the textile industry. Like that of other LatinAmerican cities, the population of Bogotá had exploded. While initiallysustained by massive industrial growth, Colombia’s infrastructure wasunable to support it.Carlos Padilla was, as Padilla put it, a tailor by necessity, and an

Evangelical church planter by choice. Both Padilla’s parents becameEvangelical Christians before he was born, through the influence ofPadilla’s uncle, Eddie Vuerto, who, according to Padilla, was one of thefirst Evangelical pastors in Ecuador. While economics was the impetusfor crossing borders, evangelism meant that the Padillas were often onthe move within Bogotá. The family’s Evangelical activism did not go un-noticed by local Roman Catholics. Multiple arson attempts were made onthe Padilla household, while numerous Evangelical church buildingswere burned down around them. Padilla was unable to attend first gradebecause the local school excluded Protestant children – a female churchmember taught him at home, instead. When he was eventually able toattend school, the challenges only increased. To this day he bears scarsfrom stones thrown at him as he walked down the streets of Bogotá,when he was only seven years old. Both Padilla and his older brotherWashington were later expelled from school – Padilla for not attending aRoman Catholic procession in honour of the cardinal, and Washingtonfor arguing with a teacher from the Bible. Twice people came to theirhouse to burn it down, but were stopped by police. By the time that

C. René Padilla, ‘My theological pilgrimage’, Journal of Latin American Theology iv/(), –. This article also appears in Darren C. Marks (ed.), Shaping a global theo-logical mind, Burlington, VT, , –; cf. Paul Ericksen interview with RenéPadilla, Mar. , BGCA, collection , T.

Bushnell, Modern Colombia, . Epstein, Statesman’s yearbook, ; Bushnell, Modern Colombia, . Bushnell, Modern Colombia, . Ericksen-Padilla interview. See also C. René Padilla, ‘Siervo de la palabra,’ in

C. René Padilla (ed.), Hacia una teología evangélica latinoamericana, San José ,–.

Padilla, ‘Siervo de la palabra’. Idem, ‘Pilgrimage’, . David C. Kirkpatrick interview with René Padilla, Buenos Aires, Sept. . . ‘Stott // travel diaries ’, Stott papers; cf. Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage,’ .

C . RENÉ PAD ILLA AND INTEGRAL M I S S ION

Padilla was eighteen years old, multiple attempts had been made on hislife – including an assassination attempt while he was preaching outsidehis father’s new church. Padilla has described the ‘persecution’ as‘part and parcel of life for non-Roman Catholic Christians and others inpre-nd Vatican Council Days’. Looking back, he simply notes that thiswas part of being a faithful Evangelical Christian: ‘In Colombia you hadto identify yourself as an Evangelical Christian, and if you did, you had totake the consequences.’As an economic migrant and a member of a religious minority, Padilla

came of age within a context of violence, oppression and exclusion. Therelationship between suffering and theology was an organic one forPadilla – although he lacked knowledge of the theological social categoriesat the time. He later recalled ‘longing to understand the meaning of theChristian faith in relation to issues of justice and peace in a societydeeply marked by oppression, exploitation, and abuse of power’. ForPadilla, however, his ‘inherited’ Protestant Evangelical Gospel providedfew answers to the questions that came out of a Latin American context.It spoke strongly of an individual, vertical salvation while remaining muteon the capacity of the ‘social dimensions in the gospel’ to address horizon-tal issues. The question, for Padilla, was not whether the Gospel couldengage with a revolutionary Latin American context, but how.

René Padilla at Wheaton College

With the help of American missionaries in Ecuador, in August RenéPadilla enrolled at Wheaton College, Illinois, an Evangelical Christian insti-tution with a considerable academic reputation. Padilla attendedWheaton from to , completing his Bachelor of Arts inPhilosophy and Master of Arts in Theology. During his time away fromLatin America, Padilla developed some aspects of his theological thinkingat the expense of others. Social questions were in abeyance, as he focusedon the conservative Evangelical emphases of the time, such as the ‘histor-ical-grammatical approach to hermeneutics’, which he learned fromProfessor A. Berkeley Mickelsen. Padilla would later describe this

Kirkpatrick-Padilla interview, Sept. . Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage’, . Ericksen-Padilla interview. For the socio-political tumult in Colombia after

see Herbert Braun, The assassination of Gaitán: public life and urban violence in Colombia,Madison, WI .

Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage’, . Ibid. –. Ericksen-Padilla interview. Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage’, –.

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approach as ‘a good and necessary step, but… not enough’. At Wheaton,Padilla discovered the centrality of Christology, the importance of eschat-ology and the ‘tools of exegesis’ such as Koine Greek and biblicalHebrew. Questions of social theology, however, were less pressing inthe comfortable North American suburban context.Padilla returned to Latin America in after being appointed an IFES

travelling secretary for Latin America, specifically for Venezuela, Colombia,Peru and Ecuador. Padilla was often away from his family for weeks at atime, immersed as he was in student work on Latin American universitycampuses. This widespread contact with universities and studentsaround Latin America gave him a unique perspective on the socio-politicalsituation. The stark contrast with Wheaton and the shock of returning toLatin America threw into question his theological categories, particularlythose that he had formulated at Wheaton. The effects of the CubanRevolution of – reverberated throughout Latin America, and univer-sity students pressed Christian student workers for a response to the pull ofrevolution. Padilla immediately perceived the inadequacy of WesternProtestant Evangelical theology in this context: ‘In this [university]context I found myself lacking a social ethic. My years of studies in theUnited States had not prepared me for the sort of theological reflectionthat was urgently needed in a revolutionary situation!’ Padilla’s own dis-satisfaction with existing approaches to ministry, combined with studentdemand for social engagement, resulted in a unique social theology.The Latin American university campus became a laboratory for new theolo-gies, particularly within the IFES.

Theology meets revolution: student work at the Latin American university

The IFES was founded in August at Phillips Brooks’s house atHarvard. It is the worldwide representative body that arose out of Inter-

Ibid. . See also Kirkpatrick-Padilla interview, Sept. . Ibid. Samuel Escobar, La chispa y la llama: breve historia de la Comunidad Internacional de

Estudiantes Evangélicos en América Latina, Buenos Aires , . Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage,’ . Ibid. See Samuel Escobar, ‘Doing theology on Christ’s Road’, in Jeffrey P. Greenman

and Gene L. Green (eds), Global theology in Evangelical perspective: exploring the contextualnature of theology and mission, Downers Grove, IL , .

Pete Lowman, The day of his power: a history of the International Fellowship of EvangelicalStudents, Downers Grove, IL , ; A. Donald MacLeod, C. Stacey Woods and theEvangelical rediscovery of the university, Downers Grove, IL , . For the foundingof IFES see C. Stacey Woods, The growth of a work of God: the story of the early days of the

C . RENÉ PAD ILLA AND INTEGRAL M I S S ION

Varsity Fellowship (IVF), later known in Britain as the Universities andColleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), and the InterVarsity ChristianFellowship-USA (IVCF), its US counterpart. Its Latin American workbegan in with mostly North American missionaries working inMexico, Peru and Central America. That Latin America was in fermentwas one of the first observations made by Western student missionleaders as the IFES began to expand its ministry southward in the s.Antipathy toward Protestant Evangelicals, who were seen as foreign or‘gringos’, only increased as revolutionary movements multiplied.Protestants were often seen as sympathetic to military regimes domestically,or to the interests of the American government or the CIA internationally.Indeed, Ed Pentecost, the first IFES student worker in Latin America wrotein that ‘Probably not six months have gone by in the last fifteen yearswhen some have not been killed for being Protestants and many moreburnt out of their homes.’ The IFES was certainly not alone in its proxim-ity to political ferment: reports from ecumenical SCM staff workers arestrikingly similar to those of IFES staff.In the political realm, university students in Latin America grappled with

the attraction of revolutionary action – whether protest, violence or evenguerrilla warfare – as a response to socio-political unrest. In LatinAmerica, students had political clout, due both to their numbers and tothe fact that they were educated: in Colombia, for example, per centof the population was illiterate in the late s. University studentswere therefore one of the few groups that was able to engage with the pol-itical and particularly the Marxist literature of the day. Escobar andPadilla were immersed in the same milieu as liberation theologians –engaging with the issues raised by university students. Indeed, whenthe Peruvian Evangelical Pedro Arana (Padilla’s successor as IFESgeneral secretary for Latin America) was a student leader with IFES, he en-rolled in ‘various summer courses’ with his fellow-Peruvian, Gustavo

Inter-varsity Christian Fellowship of the United States of America as told by its first GeneralSecretary, Downers Grove, IL , –.

For the founding of IFES in Latin America see Escobar, La chispa y la llama; Woods,The growth of a work of God, –; and Lowman, The day of his power, –.

Kirkpatrick-Padilla interview, Sept. . His (June-Sept. ), , cited in Escobar, La chispa y la llama, . See, for example, WCSF papers, Yale Divinity School Archives, collection , box

, folder . See, for example, Camilo Torres Restrepo, ‘Message to students’, in De Castro,

Horowitz and Gerassi, Latin American radicalism, –. Ibid. . Ibid. This article originally appeared in La Gaceta (Bogata) xiii (Mar–Apr. )

(trans. Morton Marks). Escobar, La chispa y la llama, .

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Gutiérrez, such as lectures in July in Chimbote, Peru. These lectureslater became Gutiérrez’s masterwork, A theology of liberation. Escobarrecalled Arana visiting his home afterwards and discussing the lectures.IFES in Latin American operated with a constant eye toward the chan-

ging political situation. Samuel Escobar, in particular, noted the intimateconnection between revolution and theology in , the year of thedeath of the Catholic guerrilla priest, Camilo Torres Restrepo. The pre-vious year Torres had made a direct appeal to university students inColombia, in the newspaper La Gaceta, to join the Marxist revolution.Escobar described the revolutionary situation that greeted IFES staffworkers at Latin American universities in the s and s:

Around the challenge of Marxism and of leftist nationalists in general hadstopped being only ideological and political… Guerrilla warfare as a way of attain-ing power and transforming the world had quickly become an extremely attractivedoctrine and practice, especially in the universities. Every question regarding violenceand subversion touched, in one way or another, the field of theology and the teach-ing of the Bible.

Protestant Evangelicals such as Padilla and Escobar were not immune tothe attraction of revolution. The questions posed by Marxism challengedthe core of their theology. Samuel Escobar recalled being ‘tempted’ as ayoung man by the Marxist social analysis of class and power; it spoke tothe yawning gap between rich and poor in Peru and the obvious hegemonyof the ruling class. René Padilla credited Ecuadorian ‘Marxist andatheist’ high school teachers with having ‘implant[ed]’ questions ofsocial justice and peace into his mind at a young age. Padilla himself didnot see Marxism as inherently incompatible with Christianity, but cau-tioned against using social-scientific analysis as an ‘ideological straight-jacket’ for the Bible: an accusation that he levelled at some liberationtheologians, such as Juan Luis Segundo. Padilla turned to the writingsof a Scotsman, the Princeton theologian and writer on Latin AmericanChristianity John A. Mackay, along with those of Mexican writers such asGonzalo Báez-Camargo, and Alberto Rembao. Yet, rather than

David C. Kirkpatrick (Skype) interview with Pedro Arana, Mar. ; cf. GustavoGutiérrez, A theology of liberation: history, politics, and salvation, Maryknoll, NY , p. xi.

Kirkpatrick-Arana interview. Kirkpatrick-Escobar interview, Oct. . Escobar, La chispa y la llama, . Restrepo, ‘Message to students’, –. Escobar, La chispa y la llama, (italics mine). Kirkpatrick-Escobar interview, Oct. . C. René Padilla, ‘Liberation theology: an appraisal,’ in Daniel S. Schipani (ed.),

Freedom and discipleship, Maryknoll, NY , , and ‘La teología de la liberación:una evaluación crítica’, Misión i/ (), .

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‘vaccinating’ him against Marxism, as was Escobar’s experience withMackay, this literature stimulated Padilla’s search for an EvangelicalLatin American social theology. Padilla reflected that ‘My reading ofthese authors affirmed in me the conviction that my total inability to articu-late a Christian answer to the questions my teachers posed was due to thelack of a social dimension of the gospel I had received at home: a gospel forindividual salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, and little morethan that.’ These theological questions would resurface years later, after‘hibernating’ during his studies in North America. Upon returning toLatin America, Padilla began to explore social theology through hisservice among the poor.

Emerging social theology and new theological avenues: Lima,

In January Samuel Escobar and René Padilla developed and pre-sented, in Lima, the first Latin American-led training course for IFES uni-versity students. This course was immensely important for the developmentof socio-contextual theological ideas. Each afternoon, after ‘discipleship’and evangelism training, the students were sent into poor neighbourhoodsto work with local churches in service projects. C. Stacey Woods, the IFESgeneral secretary, had initially been sceptical, but he increasingly de-ferred to his Latin American staff, allowing them to set the direction andcontent of student work and thus providing an intellectual freedom thatwas unconventional within contemporary Protestant Evangelical studentministries. The curriculum of the Lima course in had evolved fromeight years of experience in the Latin American university context and mir-rored broader trends in Latin American Christianity, such as the RomanCatholic Church’s shift toward the poor in the mid-s.Unfortunately, historiography has credited Western leaders with the cur-

riculum, in particular in interpreting it as based upon a training course ledby Hans Bürki in at Casa Moscia, Switzerland, which Padilla andEscobar attended. Pete Lowman, for example, mistranslated and mis-quoted Escobar as saying that the Lima course was ‘somethingwhich gave form to all that we had learnt’ from Bürki and his course.Other historians have followed Lowman’s lead, as described in his Theday of his power, which relied heavily on Samuel Escobar’s La chispa y la

Kirkpatrick-Escobar interview, Oct. ; Samuel Escobar, ‘My pilgrimage inmission’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research xxxvi/ (), .

Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage’, –. Ibid. . Kirkpatrick-Padilla interview, Sept. . Escobar, La chispa y la llama, . On the Roman Catholic Church see especially

Tombs, Latin American liberation theology, –, –.

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llama. Escobar himself wrote of the Lima course that ‘We hadbegun to articulate something that was very Evangelical but also verymuch our own: something which brought together our own experience(propia vivencia), inside the tradition of the Fellowship.’ That uniqueelement was social theology, manifested in concrete social action amongthe poor.Careful attention to archival documents and unpublished papers also

clarifies and corrects the oral history concerning this course. The Lima course was the first initiative taken by Padilla after his returnfrom Manchester, where he had completed his PhD under F. F. Bruce(–). At the time, Bruce was ‘the most prominent conservativeEvangelical biblical scholar of the post-war era’. Padilla had beenappointed the first General Secretary of IFES for Latin America afterfinishing in October of and graduating in absentia in June of .Padilla later recalled the Lima course as ‘a way of promoting not only evan-gelisation as oral proclamation of the Gospel, but of promoting integral dis-cipleship, including the social dimension of the Gospel’. Yet, thisrounded understanding of integral mission is probably being applied retro-actively here. The first time that Padilla used the phrase ‘social dimensionsof the Gospel’ in writing was in , in an article for Certeza (the IFESmagazine for Latin America). A year earlier, he had used the phrase‘dimensions of the gospel’. Yet, in January , Padilla still had hisPhD thesis fresh in his mind. There his language reflected the prevalentProtestant Evangelical understanding of social theology: social action wasa necessary implication of the Gospel message, rather than a componentof it. Padilla certainly emphasised social action in his thesis when he saidthat ‘It cannot be overemphasized that the Gospel has social implications’,yet he lambasted the attempt to read social transformation into the Bible:

To the embarrassment of the modern social reformer, in none of the Pauline epis-tles is there the slightest suggestion that the Church will eventually mould thesocial structures or that it is incumbent upon her to do so. To hold that … is anarbitrary modernisation of his teaching. The idea that the Church is an agency of

Escobar, La chispa y la llama, . See also Lowman, The day of his power, – n. ,and Stanley, Global diffusion, –.

Escobar, La chispa y la llama, . Kirkpatrick-Escobar interview, Oct. ; Padilla to Kirkpatrick, Oct.

(e-mail). Stanley, Global diffusion, . Padilla to Kirkpatrick, Oct. (e-mail). Padilla to Kirkpatrick, Oct. (e-mail). C. René Padilla, ‘Evangelio y responsibilidad social’, Certeza vii/ (),

–. Idem, ‘La teología en Latinoamerica’, Boletín Teológico ii (), . Idem, ‘Church and world: a study of the relation between the Church and the

world in the teaching of the Apostle Paul’, unpubl. PhD diss. Manchester , .

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‘social redemption’ to be brought about through the permeation of society by Christian princi-ples is a modern invention; the attempt to justify it by an appeal to Paul or any other Biblicalwriter is doomed to failure.

It is clear, then, that in the mid-s René Padilla’s understanding ofsocial ethics reflected mainstream Protestant Evangelical theology.Archival documents also confirm that his doctoral thesis was still veryclose to him – indeed, it formed the basis of his plenary talk at Lima in entitled ‘The Church and the world’. One participant wrote that‘In René Padilla’s lectures the conclusion of more liberal theologicalapproaches was rejected, i.e. that God’s purpose is to change the structuresof society … the only Biblical approach that of [sic] winning the individualin bringing him deliverance from the Kingdom of Darkness to theKingdom of Light.’In his thesis, Padilla discovered the raw material that would later inform

his understanding of integral mission –mainly the inseparability of wordand action, the kingdom of God as the basis for social ethics, and eschat-ology as its framework. Careful attention to chronology here alsoreveals that Padilla discovered and began to use kingdom of God languageprior to the rise of liberation theology. (Here, Padilla appropriated theuse made by the North American Baptist George Eldon Ladd [–]of the phrase ‘already and not yet’ to represent the present and futurecharacteristics of the Kingdom of God.) The effect of returning toLatin America threw into question Padilla’s understanding of social the-ology, and demanded, in Padilla’s words, ‘a new way of doing theology’ –a phrase that finds critical continuity with Gutiérrez. Padilla lacked thetheological categories of integral mission but not the space to experimentwith praxis-oriented ministry. Padilla and his wife Catharine Feser Padillacarried out significant ministries among the poor, widowed and addictsboth in their home and in the Evangelical Baptist Church of La Lucila inBuenos Aires. Padilla later, in , became a pastor of that church.

Ibid. (italics mine). See also p. . J. W. Voelkel to Ruben Lores, Mar. , BGCA, Latin America Mission papers,

CN , box , folder . See, for example, Padilla, ‘Church and world’, and at pp. –, –, ,

for kingdom of God language. George Eldon Ladd, Jesus and the kingdom: the eschatology of Biblical realism,New York

, p. xiv. For Ladd see further John A. D’Elia, A place at the table: George Eldon Laddand the rehabilitation of Evangelical scholarship in America, Oxford–New York .

See David C. Kirkpatrick, ‘C. René Padilla: integral mission and the reshaping ofglobal Evangelicalism’, unpubl. PhD diss. Edinburgh .

Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage’, ; Gutiérrez, A theology of liberation, . Much more could be said on the important work and influence of Feser Padilla.

See Kirkpatrick, ‘C. René Padilla’, –.

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From implication to content: René Padilla and the social dimensions of theGospel

By René Padilla had moved from speaking of the social implicationsof the Gospel to its inescapably social content. He was driven by discontentwith the inadequacy both of mainstream Protestant Evangelical theologyand also of the gospel of Marxism, which he viewed as ‘devoid of spiritualcontent’. Similarly, the socio-political context of Argentina, where he hadlived since , remained at the forefront of his mind. After JuanPerón’s return from exile in June , and death the following year,Argentina was plunged into chaos. Two years later a coup d’état broughtback military rule to Argentina, along with the infamous Dirty War, inwhich between , and , alleged leftist sympathisers and civilianswere murdered or disappeared. In this context, Padilla continued tosearch for and to develop a Protestant Evangelical social theology.In the late s Latin America had become a battleground for the soul

of Christian mission. Historic denominations, especially those associatedwith the WCC, increasingly moved away from the traditional emphases ofProtestant mission. For example, in , the WCC gathering in Uppsalaradically redefined the purpose of mission as ‘humanisation’ rather thanconversion. Many of these global shifts were the result of pressurefrom the South – including the WCC-sponsored discussion forum‘Church and Society in Latin America’ or ISAL. In response to socio-pol-itical unrest and missiological shifts, the BGEA planned the boldly titledFirst Latin American Congress for Evangelization (CLADE I). A totalof delegates met in Bogotá on – November .The explicit goal of CLADE I was the evangelisation of the whole of Latin

America. Yet, according to Padilla, the conference was ‘made in the USA’

For more on the Dirty War in Argentina see Marguerite Feitlowitz, A lexicon ofterror: Argentina and the legacies of torture, Oxford–New York , and Paul H. Lewis,Guerrillas and generals: the ‘Dirty War’ in Argentina, Westport, CT .

WCC, The Church for others, and the Church for the world, Geneva . For discus-sion of The Church for others see Mark T. B. Laing, From crisis to creation: Lesslie Newbigin andthe reinvention of Christian mission, Eugene, OR , –. These trends were alreadytaking shape in the s as well. See ‘Report on leadership training course’,Cochabamba, Bolivia, Dec. – Jan. , WSCF papers, collection , box, folder .

Smith, Liberation theology, ; Alan P. Neely, ‘Protestant antecedents of the LatinAmerican theology of liberation’, unpubl. PhD diss. American University, Washington,DC , , and also his ‘Liberation theology in Latin America: antecedents andautochthony’, Missiology: An International Review vi (), .

CLADE, Acción en Cristo. Personal correspondence, planning and general papersfrom CLADE I can be found at BGCA, special collection .

CLADE, Acción en Cristo.

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with scant contribution from Latin Americans themselves. Each delegatealso received a copy of the American missionary Peter Wagner’s LatinAmerican theology. Wagner categorised Latin American Christians accord-ing to a North American liberal-conservative spectrum. He also posited acontextual Latin American understanding of mission, in which he rejectedsocial action in favour of ‘saving souls’. In response, Padilla wrote a scathingarticle outlining his most explicit case to date for integral mission.Here, Padilla first addressed what he called ‘the customary divorce’

between evangelism and social action:

The proclamation of the gospel (kerygma) and the demonstration of the gospel thatgives itself in service (diakonía) form an indivisible (indisoluble) whole. One withoutthe other is an incomplete, mutilated (mutilado) gospel and, consequently, contraryto the will of God. From this perspective, it is foolish to ask about the relative import-ance of evangelism and social responsibility. This would be equivalent to askingabout the relative importance of the right wing and the left wing of a plane.

Padilla posited an understanding of Christian mission that dissolved thebarrier between social action and evangelism. In doing so, he connectedmission to the content of the Gospel message. His article was prescientin the context of wider Protestant Evangelical dialogue on social ethicsand theology.At CLADE, Padilla, Escobar, Costas, the Peruvian-born British missionary

Peter Savage and others discussed the persistent paternalism of the mis-sionary leadership and the scarcity of contextual Protestant Evangelical the-ology in Latin America. This group met again in the December of thefollowing year in Bolivia, in the bucolic town of Carachipampa, justoutside Cochabamba (although in later press releases, Cochabamba wascited for clarity). There, they founded the Fraternidad TeológicaLatinoamericana (the Latin American Theological Fraternity), whichbecame the most influential Latin American Evangelical Protestant theo-logical think-tank.

Padilla, ‘CLADE III: un <<hito>> en la historia de la Iglesia’, . Wagner was an associate general director of the Bolivian Indian Mission. He later

became a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. C. Peter Wagner, Latin American theology: radical or Evangelical? The struggle for the

faith in a young Church, Grand Rapids , . C. René Padilla, ‘Teología Latinoamericana: ¿Izquierdista o Evangélica?,’

Pensamiento Cristiano xvii/ (), –. This gloss reflects Padilla’s English word choice. Padilla, ‘Teología Latinoamericana’, . Douglas A. Sweeney, The American Evangelical story: a history of the movement, Grand

Rapids , –. ‘FTL Consulta ’, undated, Padilla papers; Padilla, ‘Pilgrimage’, . It was later renamed ‘Latin American Theological Fellowship’ in order to reflect

the gender-neutrality of the Spanish word fraternidad.

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Throughout the next four decades, FTL consultations and membersbecame key interlocutors for the development of themes of integralmission. Notable conferences included the ‘The Kingdom of God andLatin America’ on – December at the Seminario Bíblico in Lima,Peru. Padilla’s theological maturation continued to bear fruit.Regarding this conference, Escobar recalled that ‘René had convincedus of the importance of eschatology and of the Kingdom of God for under-standing the message of Jesus.’ In their papers for the conferencePadilla and Míguez Bonino provided their first public explanation oftheir theologies of the Kingdom – which would become central themesfor both liberation theology and integral mission. Padilla continued topublish in Spanish too, increasingly interrogating the ‘dimensions of thegospel’.Three years later, in , Padilla first asked the question ‘What is the

Gospel?’ of the English-speaking world in a book review for ChristianityToday. That same year he answered the question in Spanish in a monu-mental article for Certeza entitled ‘Evangelio y responsibilidad social’(Gospel and social responsibility):

Although the Gospel has to do with the personal relation of man with God, it is notsimply a formula of individual salvation, but also a proclamation that… God actedin Jesus Christ to create a new humanity. It is the good news … of the Kingdom ofGod in the person of Jesus Christ. And in this event, the most important of all time,Christian ethics (as well as theology) encounters its beginning and its end.

Here, Padilla expanded for the first time on his understanding of the‘social dimension of the Gospel’. For Padilla, the Gospel was morethan just a guide to personal salvation – it was the announcement ofthe coming of the kingdom of God. Later in the same article Padilla col-lapsed ethics, eschatology and the Gospel together, saying that ‘TheChristian ethic is the Gospel clothed until its ultimate consequences.’The following year he used the phrase ‘misión integral’ for the first timein his plenary speech at the Lausanne Congress of , though theEnglish gloss ‘comprehensive mission’ was provided for Englishspeakers.Later in the same decade, Padilla continued this conversation in English.

The IFES general committee met in at Schloss Mittersill, the IFES

C. René Padilla (ed.), El reino de Dios y América Latina, El Paso , . Samuel Escobar to David C. Kirkpatrick, Dec. (e-mail). Padilla, ‘La teología en Latinoamerica’, . Idem, ‘What is the Gospel?’, Christianity Today xvii/ (), –. Idem, ‘Evangelio y responsibilidad social’, . Ibid. Ibid.

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headquarters in Austria, with the theme ‘The Gospel Today’. Padilla’spaper for that meeting was later published in Spanish in El Evangelio Hoy,and included in his most famous work, Misión integral, and the Englishversion, Mission between the times. He wrote that

The most important questions that should be asked with regard to the life andmission of the Church today are not related to the relevance but to the content ofthe gospel. To be sure, there is a place for the consideration of ways in whichthe gospel meets man’s needs in the modern world. Far more basic howeveris the consideration of the nature of the gospel that could meet man’s needs.The what of the gospel determines the how of its effects in practical life.

From onward, Padilla would explore the content of the Gospel, workwhich eventually led to the formulation of a fully worked-out understand-ing of integral mission. Within the socio-political tumult of post-war LatinAmerica, the Latin American university campus and the local church con-tinued to be a laboratory for theological and social experimentation.By paying careful attention to neglected archival documents, early pub-

lications in Spanish, census reports and extensive interviews, the influenceof René Padilla on the rise of social theology within global EvangelicalProtestantism in the second half of the twentieth century emerges asboth clear and complex. Padilla’s proximity to the revolutionary LatinAmerican university scene, in particular, gave rise to both unique theologic-al questions and discontent with pre-packaged answers, making the univer-sity a metaphorical classroom within which contextual responses wereformed. Padilla and Escobar were developing integral mission en embryocontiguously with liberation theology and broad reforms within theRoman Catholic Church.The global student movement, and in particular the organisational struc-

ture of IFES under the leadership of the Australian C. Stacey Woods, wasfar-sighted in developing both national leadership and providing thefreedom to explore contextual theological methodology. This global or-ganisational structure and leadership environment was unique – even idio-syncratic for its time. The raw ingredients of integral mission sprang fromthe expanding post-war Latin American universities, in which Marxist ideasof revolutionary change presented a growing appeal to students. The surgein student enrolment was preceded by waves of rural-urban migration,leaving in its wake urban poverty and creating a context which was ripefor radical student idealism. The origins of integral mission, then, arefound within a revolutionary university context, grounded in the global

‘Anonymous, handwritten notes from the presentation’, IFES papers, Blue BoarStreet, Oxford, box labelled ‘International student movements: the Americas, –’, folder ‘South America’.

BGCA Archives, SC , box , folder .

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Evangelical student movement, and developed by Latin American thinkersthemselves – principally the Ecuadorian theologian C. René Padilla. Fromthese Latin American origins, Padilla’s influence spread around theworld – in Christian political activism, mission and relief organisations, incongress declarations and global ecclesiastical movements. Integralmission themes arose not as a response to developments within theRoman Catholic Church, but as a response to the same political andsocial stimuli that gave rise to liberation theology. Historians and teachersof late modern Christianity should use the language of integral mission tounderscore both Padilla’s influence and the unique developments thattook place in post-war Latin American Protestant Evangelicalism.

The extent of Padilla’s global influence is beyond the scope of this paper. Oneexample, however, is the Micah Network, which comprises more than five hundredChristian mission and relief organisations from over eighty countries, and claims inte-gral mission as its goal: http://www.micahnetwork.org/.

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